


These People Raised Me

by ShowMeAHero



Series: this is my house, and i live in it [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, DCU (Comics), Nightwing (Comics), Teen Titans - All Media Types, Young Justice - All Media Types
Genre: Adopted Children, Adopted Sibling Relationship, Adoption, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Light Angst, Sibling Love, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-11-07 15:20:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17963051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShowMeAHero/pseuds/ShowMeAHero
Summary: Cassie’s sitting at the dining room table with Bruce, Tim, and Steph when Dick gets in there. He grins at her, opens his arms, and she watches him for a second before she pushes her chair back with a screech across the tile. She hurtles at Dick, catches him around the waist, buries her face in his stomach.“Hey, little sis,” Dick says. Cassie’s only eight, but she’s whip-smart and strong and kind of intense. She fits right in.





	These People Raised Me

**Author's Note:**

> Looks like I'm taking these random drabbles I wrote all in the same AU universe and putting them into a series here on AO3! Enjoy!
> 
> Title taken from ["Castle On The Hill"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Qp5vcuMIlk) by Ed Sheeran.

Dick doesn’t take the squad car. He leaves that behind, takes his motorcycle instead. He’s still half-in uniform; the other half is stuffed in the backpack strapped to his back as he flies down the road. Everything  _hurts._ People break his heart all the time, because he wears the fucking thing on the sleeve. He doesn't know how to stop himself from falling in love with every goddamn person he meets.

He’s got his helmet on. The sidecar’s attached. He doesn’t look at it. He has the visor down, but it’s getting darker and darker by the minute. The tinted glass of the visor is making it seem like it’s later than it is, but, then, it is getting darker earlier now.

Dick takes the long way home, just to give himself more time to calm down. He woke up hungover as hell, on a couch that wasn’t his, in a part of town he doesn’t remember going to last night. He went to work, once he made himself eat something. He went to the gym after work. He feels slightly more alive, but no more human than he did before. The images that flash behind his eyes are disorienting. He tries not to so much as blink.

He had texted Bruce before he left home, but there’s nobody outside when he pulls up the driveway. He abandons his motorcycle and the helmet, hauls himself into the house. He has to dig his key out of his pocket and shove it in the lock to get himself in, but once he is, Damian comes flying around the corner down the hall and slams into his legs.

“You smell horrible,” Damian says. Dick puts his hand on Damian’s head, then drops his backpack and helmet all together onto the floor and kneels down, tugging Damian in to hold him close. Damian just hugs him back, not moving to get away, not squirming, nothing. He just keeps letting himself be held. He and Dick have always had a different connection than Dick does with anyone else.

“Hey, Dick,” Jason says. Dick stands, wiping at his face. When he looks at Jason, he’s frowning. “What’s wrong with you, idiot?”

“Nothing,” Dick answers. “No, sorry, I’m good.”

Jason eyes him for a second, then says, “Later.” Jason’s always been too observant for his own good. “Wanna meet our newest sibling?”

“I’ve met Cassie before,” Dick reminds him. Damian slips his hand into Dick’s and pulls at him, leading him down the hall. “I’ve made her and her friends breakfast after their sleepovers, I’ve driven her—”

“He means as our  _sister,”_  Damian tells him. “God, it’s like you—”

 _“Where_  is all this _attitude_  coming from?” Dick asks. He ruffles Damian’s hair, and Damian shoves him away, grabbing his hand again.

Cassie’s sitting at the dining room table with Bruce, Tim, and Steph when Dick gets in there. He grins at her, opens his arms, and she watches him for a second before she pushes her chair back with a screech across the tile. She hurtles at Dick, catches him around the waist, buries her face in his stomach. Dick strokes her hair back. He’ll probably end up braiding it before he leaves tonight, because he does the best braids, according to her and Steph, and Damian when he grew his hair out.

“Hey, little sis,” Dick says. Cassie’s only eight, but she’s whip-smart and strong and kind of intense. She fits right in.

She’s also teary-eyed, when she cranes her head, tips back to look up at Dick. Dick pushes her hair back away from her face. Dick grins at her.

“Thanks, Dick,” Cassie says. She’s his fifth sibling, now, but the second-youngest. Jason just turned twenty-one in August; Steph is eighteen, Tim is seventeen. Damian’s only six. He acts like he’s forty-five, but that’s beside the point. Dick looks up at Bruce.

“Don’t know when to quit, do you?” Dick asks. It’s a horrible echo of something he thinks he said the night before, but he says a lot of things, all the time, and he barely remembers the ones that happen at night.

 _“You_  try telling her no,” Bruce says. He doesn’t smile, but Dick’s known him very well for a very long time. He can tell Bruce is content.

“Hey, Dick, can I talk to you for a sec?” Jason asks. Bruce watches Jason carefully, but Dick just nods and lets Jason take him into the next room. “Dick, you look like shit.”

“No, I look fine,” Dick argues. He shoves a hand back through his hair; he’d checked the mirror at the gym before he left.

“You look exhausted,” Jason comments. “What’re you doing?”

“What do you  _mean,_  what am I doing?” Dick asks. Jason just keeps staring at him, with those piercing fucking eyes of his. He sees too much, too.

“Are you still—”

 _“Jay,”_  Dick says, forcefully. “It’s fine. I’m _fine._ I’m dealing with it.”

“Are you?” Jason asks. Dick glares at him, then looks away.

“I’m doing great,” Dick says. “Better than we expected. Prognosis is good, outlook is—”

“Don’t fuck around, Dick,” Jason interrupts him. Dick sighs. “C’mon.”

“Don’t,” Dick says. Jason’s hand twitches. Dick wonders if he wanted to touch him or punch him. “I’m doing fine.”

Jason studies him. He doesn’t say anything like  _you can talk to me,_  or  _I want to help,_  or  _what can I do,_  because those aren’t things Jason  _says._  They just  _are._ Finally, Jason eventually just says, “Well, act fine. You look like hell. What’d you do last night?”

 _Drank myself into oblivion,_  Dick thinks.

“Just went out,” Dick says. Jason seems to just barely stop himself from rolling his eyes. “Hey, this is Cassie’s day, what’re you worrying about? Today’s awesome. I’ll make us dinner, c’mon, what’re we—”

“Oh, you’re gonna make us all bowls of Lucky Charms, Master Chef?” Jason asks, and he shoves Dick back into the dining room, all slick attitude and grins. Everything’s normal. Everything’s good. Everything’s going to be  _just fine._

* * *

Of course, once everyone goes to bed, Jason will come into the den where Dick is sitting, drop a six-pack in between them, and say, “Talk.”

And Dick will.

**Author's Note:**

> I also actually wrote some books! It was a long road but, I did it! Ta-da! If you want to read either of them, shoot me a message!
> 
> I have a blog now to request imagines - I just like to make people happy. Submit requests [here!](https://imagine-in-the-fandoms.tumblr.com/ask)
> 
> You can follow me on Twitter at [@nicolelianesolo](https://twitter.com/nicoIodeon) or on Tumblr at [andillwriteyouatragedy](http://andillwriteyouatragedy.tumblr.com/).


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